After spending some time at Aquariums West in Yaletown, I noticed that Shiny Tea in International Village was only a 10 minute walk away! It was the perfect, sunny Spring day for a walk so off we went.

Shiny Tea is another chain that has popped up recently and has great reviews. I honestly don’t know how all these new places compete with each other but I guess everyone just loves their bubble tea.

Shiny Tea is located on the second floor of Intentional Village. This mall is quite dull and quiet with the exception of Yokoyaya123 and the theatre, so Shiny Tea is a nice addition and probably gives the mall some more traffic.

It was completely dead when the boyfriend and I came, and the black pearls were still being cooked. But we didn’t mind getting the clear ones which were ready.

Honey longan red date tea: I had my eyes set on this drink for awhile now because it is caffeine and dairy free! I also really like date tea.

I really enjoyed my drink. It was light, refreshing, and pure. The honey and dates gave it a well rounded sweetness. There were bits of ground up lychee which were delicious and sweet too.

The clear pearls were smaller than the regular pearls. They were alright, nothing that special but a nice addition to the drink.

Brown sugar milk tea: After trying Onezo’s delicious brown sugar milk tea, the boyfriend wanted to compare. He found that Shiny Tea did not have much brown sugar flavour. It tasted like a regular milk tea instead of a brown sugar one.

I would love to come back to Shiny Tea! I appreciate the fact that they have a caffeine free menu section, which is very rare.

Amongst the surge of new bubble tea places in the past year, OneZo inarguably has been one of the most popular and successful ones so far! I’ve heard good things about it from multiple people but have yet to go because me and caffeine don’t mix well.

For example, many years ago (when my stomach tolerated dairy), I drank a milk tea at 10 am and couldn’t sleep the next morning until 6 am! Another time, I was lying awake in bed at 2 am wondering why I couldn’t sleep…. After thinking of everything I ate/drank that day, realized I had a can of Pepsi during a family gathering. -_-”

I could get the slush but their tea drinks were their most popular so I didn’t feel like it would do justice. However, seeing that it was a 4 day long weekend, I figured I could have caffeine on Friday and have 3 more days to adjust my sleep schedule until going back to work on Tuesday!

After having lunch at Boiling Point, we walked over to OneZo but ended up missing it because it was quite inconspicuous! Once we got in though, it was packed (also because it’s small and narrow).

Passion fruit green tea with OneZo pearls: I wanted to try the fresh fruit tea but it only came in a large size, and I was not ready to commit to that much caffeine. So, the passionfruit was my second choice!

Let’s start with the pearls, which is what they’re famous for … They were sooo good and chewy!!! I got the OneZo pearls which was a daily preselected mix. That day, it was a mix of mango, sweet potato, and crystal. It was my first time trying flavoured pearls and it was delightful! The mango flavour was quite subtle but definitely had a tropical flavour. The sweet potato had a stronger flavour and reminded me of less dense version ZenQ’s sweet potato Q ball. The crystal pearl is your regular pearl but clear.

Moving on to the green tea, I found it really fragrant and strong! Since it’s been awhile for me and green tea, I asked the boyfriend to try and see what he thought because he drinks tea every week. He agreed that it was a stronger green tea and very fragrant.

My only complaint was the passionfruit seeds! I appreciated the quality and use of fresh passionfruit seeds, but the crunchy texture distracted the beautiful chewiness of the pearls. It reminded me of crunchy sunflower seed shells which is not what I’m wanting in bubble tea.

Although I enjoyed the taste of the passionfruit, I wouldn’t want the seeds in there again.

Brown sugar dirty milk: We are huge fans of LINE Friends, hence the Brown Bites series on my blog. We follow an IG page of Brown comics, and the night before, they posted a drawing of Brown drinking too much brown sugar dirty milk. So this was one of the influencing factors of the boyfriend getting the brown sugar dirty milk… Yes we are a bit (maybe very) crazy with LINE friends!

Anyways, he didn’t realize that this didn’t come with any tea. No complaints though because he really enjoyed the drink. It was sweet and had a nice caramelized flavour.

We thought there weren’t going to be any pearls but it ended up coming with your standard black pearls, which were tasty as well.

Overall, we both were very satisfied with OneZo and can see why it’s so popular! You can really taste the quality in their drinks and customized pearls. If you’re a pearl lover, I would definitely recommend coming here.

Rocky Point is such an underrated park, but I love it here! This park has many good memories for me, from family BBQ gatherings, to picnics with friends, or Ribfest. One of the most popular places in the park is Rocky Point Ice Cream!

On the way home from Coquitlam, the boyfriend and I stopped here because it’s been awhile. I was also craving some dessert.

It was not that busy on the night that we came by, but in the summer it can get really busy here. Rocky Point Ice Cream has that classic, ice cream shop scent… you know, the very sweet/rich dairy scent. Or is that just me who smells it?

Berry sorbet: I had my eye on the vegan chocolate, but that only vegan chocolate flavour was a chocolate blueberry fig and it was not good. So, I settled on the berry sorbet even though I didn’t really want sorbet because there wasn’t anything else.

I found the sorbet to be disappointing, but that’s because I was craving something richer with a coconut milk base. But that is in no fault of Rocky Point, just my personal preference that day.

Brown butter pecan: The boyfriend enjoyed his flavour unlike moi. It was their spin on the pralines and cream flavour.

I would recommend Rocky Point Ice Cream for their dairy desserts, but not their vegan/dairy free/sorbet things. Their prices are also a bit cheaper than the popular ice cream shops in Vancouver which is great!

I remember having Cartems donuts maybe like 6-7 years ago when a friend brought them to an university club event. They were delicious! Since then, I haven’t had Cartems so Latte and I went to go check out the Main Street location one evening!

The Main Street location was quite spacious, with very high ceilings. There was a friendly, good vibe going on in there and it would be a nice place to study or get some work done.

The bottom row of donuts are always vegan, so they do have a large selection of vegan donuts (one of the reasons I wanted to come back since I currently can’t have dairy). I was surprised that Latte wanted a vegan donut, but that’s better for me because it meant we could share!

Tea: We both ordered a tea with our donut. I had the herbal strawberry mint which was fragrant and warming.

Citrus glaze donut: This was my favourite out of the 3 that we ordered! The donut was thick and fluffy. The citrus glaze was subtle and gave it a nice, sweet tang. I’ve never had a citrus donut before but the flavours worked well with each other.

Maple walnut donut: This one was good too, but it was more of a savoury donut. It was topped with crushed walnuts and I tasted a hint of black pepper.

Vanilla bean donut: This donut was also good! It was the simplest one out of the 3, so we really tasted the quality of the donut. The donut was delightfully fluffy and moist.

I couldn’t stop thinking about that citrus glaze donut, so I took the boyfriend here a few days later! We ordered 1/2 dozen to bring back and tried more flavours.

The funny thing was that I decided to keep it a secret that it was vegan, so that he wasn’t bias in his opinions!!! MUAHAHA!!!

Tropical mint: The only donut that we did not like that day. The taste was just odd… it was a bit sweet but you get this minty aftertaste. We ended up scraping off the tropical glaze on top so we could eat it as a plain donut.

Salted caramel: This was the only ‘regular’ donut we had (aka not vegan). Since it contained dairy, I couldn’t eat it. He found it to be a lot more dense and not as fluffy, so he didn’t like it as much.

At this point, I was laughing inside and couldn’t wait to tell him this was the only dairy donut – MUAHAHA!!!

Berry hibiscus: This one was just alright…. it was filled with jam inside. The berry hibiscus donut wasn’t as fluffy as the other ones.

After the boyfriend ate all the donuts, I mischievously told him that they were all vegan except for the salted caramel! He was quite shocked and never would have guessed.

Brown and the donuts!

Cartems Donuts are amazing and they have very creative flavours! I would definitely recommend stopping by. They have a huge selection of vegan flavours which are arguably better than the regular, non-vegan ones!

Brown Bites is a mini series on my blog featuring places the boyfriend has tried without me, so it wouldn’t be my own review. Why the name Brown, you ask? It is named after the Japanese LINE character, Brown. Brown is a cute, shy, emotionless cartoon bear but secretly full of love, and we adore him to pieces!

One night while hanging out with Maki, Nigiri, and Burger, we were craving bubble tea (what else is new? bubble tea is life) so we decided to order delivery.

My stomach was acting up (again, what else is new?) so I opted out that evening. I didn’t miss out on much because they were all quite disappointed with this place!

The actual store is located in Olympic Village. It is one of the only bubble tea shops in this area. Since we ordered delivery, I can’t comment on the store or service.

Roasted milk tea with pearls: The boyfriend ordered this, but was disappointed. While it had a decent tea flavour, it was wayyyy too sweet to enjoy. The straw was too small for the pearls, so he had a hard time getting them.

Oolong milk tea with pearls

Hochija milk tea with pearls

Earl grey milk tea with grass jelly

The rest of them did not enjoy their bubble tea either, commenting that it was way too sweet.

When I asked everyone if they would have it again, everyone said they rather go order from somewhere else. If they were in Olympic Village and happened to walk by, then possibly if the bubble tea craving was strong enough. Otherwise, there are a lot more and better options in Vancouver for bubble tea.